Mistakes Take

This is a comment made into a Hub for: Write Right; Right!

“Blessed is he who has a career that matches his passion”

(George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950)

I understand there are rules to follow which ought to take you to act freely not to limit as straitjackets. Living is a continual learning in which the process ends with death here on earth. “Mistakes” take you to a place… a place of own experience where you feel happiness, peace and fulfillment. Severity in trying to educate or to live could lead any person to quit. Teaching is one of the few professions that permit love (Theodore Roethke), and we all teach in this life one way or the other. I learned that God gave us life to live it trying to get to a spiritual perfection.

Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1996) has been attributed the poem:"Instants". It is a deep, simple poem. I will share the verses that made me cry when I first read it and made it in my ways: "If I could live again my life, In the next I'll try, to make more mistakes, I won't try to be so perfect'... The author than mentions things he would do and finalizes saying: "If I have the life to live, but now I am 85 and I know I am dying."

What is life without mistakes? Maria Teresa of Calcutta left us her wisdom in:

Life is…

Life is an opportunity, use it.

Life is beauty, admire it.

Life is a dream, make it real.

Life is a challenge, confront it.

Life is a duty, complete it.

Life is a game, play it.

Life is precious, care for it.

Life is riches, conserve it.

...Life is love, enjoy it.

Life is too precious, do not destroy it."

It is said that, “Time is gold; leisure and laziness are the parents of vice and inventory”; therefore a person shouldn’t be cut from what they are trying to do. We, the people are different from robots, even when multiple intelligences mark us. Many of us find ourselves versatile with “likes” or abilities that perhaps we, just fly like butterflies jumping from one flower to the other, makes us happy and fulfilled. The world is big enough to let us gaze around and explore. “LIVE” freely with “mistakes”.

Special Education’s list is filled with students which are not given the opportunity to have their “mistakes” take them to the place of experiencing the path which will make them “perfect”… perfect??? Who is really that “perfect” person? Or who is to say, name, rule, dictate “perfection” or “mistakes”?

The Spanish teacher of the junior high school where I worked is an excellent person, coworker, friend and sister in Christ. Her name is Edna Rodriguez; she finished her doctor degree in literature. Sharing her experience, she numbered all the steps to get her thesis published. It is good to have others find “mistakes” but they will also expect “perfection”. Many times people blow away imagination from others with their own expectations.

Who made rules if not a person same as us? Once, I was finishing my plans for the school year and I found out that a document of new rules arrived so I had to start all over again. Rules made in grammar changes, and what made a writing be “perfect” oopss!! Just because of someone’s idea it will be a “mistake”… do you get it? How not to make mistakes? When irregular verbs lead misspelling, final y is usually changed to i with exceptions, and forming plural will not only be added s to the singular, but by adding es . How about when full is added to a word and the second l has to be dropped?

I love art, writing, teaching and so many other things in which I have encountered someone’s discouraging words; but even when they got their way and I let them handicap my “talent”, I am still with my boots on trying the best with my rules which “mistakes” have taken and will keep taking me.

There is a list of talented people which their abilities would have been screwed if they would have followed words of “perfection” expectations. Example of this: Robert Frost, Frank Lloyd Wright, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Leonardo da Vinci, John Grisham, Ernest Hemingway, Albert Einstein, Kenny G, etc.

Special thanks to:

Maria Montessori, who had the vision of true education and my teaching strategies are based on her legacy..

Jesus Christ, our model teacher, that said in Luke 9: 48:...and said to them, "whoever receives this child in My name receives Me, and whoever receives Me receives Him who sent Me; for the one who is least among all of you, this is the one who is great."

Froggie213, for reading my Hubs and helping with mistakes that have taken me to be more carefull.

Mistakes take you to discover, analyze, reflect, and find your own path in existence to live life in fulfillment. Grab the basic rules of things and live your life. Helen Keller said, “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing”.

Blessings to all!

© Maria Magdalena Ruiz O'Farrill